JASENOVAC, Croatia – Touring the site of Croatia's World War II concentration camp, Israeli President Shimon Peres said Sunday it was a demonstration of "sheer sadism" and that Iran's president, who has denied the Holocaust, should visit it.

Peres and Croatian President Ivo Josipovic toured Jasenovac, where a memorial honors about 85,000 of Jews, Serbs, Gypsies and anti-fascist Croats who died here in 1941-45 at the hands of Croatia's pro-Nazi regime. Thousands of people also were deported from Croatia to Nazi-run camps where they died.

Peres used the opportunity to refer to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's denials of the Holocaust. "I wish I would see him here," Peres said.

Jasenovac, the worst of about 40 camps in Croatia at the time, didn't have a gas chamber. Inmates, including the elderly and children, were killed with guns, knives and hammers. Many were tortured or starved to death. About 30,000 Jews died in Croatia during the war, most of the Jewish community's prewar population.

Peres said Croatian pro-Nazi guards "were not as elaborate and organized as Germans and that he believed the Nazis forced Croats to be brutal. "I think they wanted them to have a demonstration of sheer sadism," he said.

On Sunday, Peres was concluding his three-day visit to Croatia — another sign of warming relations between Israel and Croatia.

Israel shunned Croatia in the 1990s and held off on recognizing its 1991 independence until 1997 because Croatia's government at the time was sympathetic to the World War II regime and its late president, Franjo Tudjman, who had downplayed the fascists' crimes.

Mom and Dad were Locked up in Jasenovac, they witnessed the horror there first hand....Dad Never Talked Much if at all about it...Now Mom was a real talker she didn't hold back on what went on in the camp......